Thousands of passengers faced travel delays and disruption after all flights were suspended from Birmingham Airport due to an “aircraft incident”.
The incident, believed to have involved a light aircraft whose landing gear would not deploy as it tried to travel to Belfast around 1pm on Wednesday.
While Birmingham Airport resumed its operations and reopened its runway around 8pm, passengers continue to face delays as copious flights have since been diverted and cancelled.
The airport, which is the UK’s seventh busiest, registered a 12 per cent increase in passenger numbers in 2024 to reach 12.85 million. It is expected that this will be the busiest ever summer for the West Midlands hub, as easyJet joins the growing number of airlines to set up base at Birmingham.
As the situation unfolds, here is what we know about the disruption at Birmingham Airport.
What happened?
It is believed that the aircraft involved was a Beechcraft B200 Super King Air twin turboprop light aircraft, which belonged to Woodgate Aviation, self-described as a leading provider of corporate, business, private and general aviation services in Northern Ireland since 1969.
The flight, which is believed to have been heading to its home base of George Best Belfast City, took off at 1.16pm according to data on FlightRadar24. It climbed to 5,750 feet and almost immediately entered a holding pattern.
At 1.35pm the aircraft overflew the runway at just 300 feet, but it remains unclear if the pilot was attempting to land or enabling air traffic controllers to inspect the undercarriage. FlightRadar data shows the aircraft made contact with the ground at 1.57pm.
Woodgate Aviation said in a statement: “The turbo-prop aircraft was on a flight to Belfast International Airport when it developed landing gear problems. The aircraft returned to Birmingham and made an emergency landing and the main under-carriage collapsed on touch down.
“Two crew members and a passenger were on board but were uninjured.
“The aircraft remains on the runway and Woodgate Aviation will be co-operating fully with Air Accident investigators and airport services.
“We would like to pay tribute to the professionalism of our colleagues and the emergency services at the airport…
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